Posted on 09/17/2018 8:38:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
I’ve been thinking a lot about priests lately. In truth, I often do, as some of my best friends happen to wear Roman collars. I see them on their low days, and I see them in moments of true total self-surrender. Of course, you know why I’d be thinking about them even more lately. For priests who seek holiness in loving service to God’s people — striving to see God in every person they encounter — these are grueling times. And a few conversations I’ve had lately have reminded me that the good and holy among them, while still human beings, can have a lot of wisdom to offer — if they are true pray-ers. I know some of them, thanks be to God. And they help me see more clearly.
One of the priests I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is on the other side of the veil between here and eternity. Father Arne Panula was most recently director of the Catholic Information Center (CIC) in Washington, D.C., a hub for many things truly Catholic. I still have a vivid memory of seeing him after he had a very close call in his battle with cancer. Back from the brink, he had taken Amtrak from D.C. for a dinner in New York. He seemed as close as an encounter with resurrection as one can get, and he was wearing a radiance that could have only been of God.
It was clear that the end was still coming for him soon, and that the rest of us there needed to see him as a message from God to be careful about falling into rabbit holes, getting caught up in the things of the world, falling into endless distraction, and being ruled by our emotions. The added time he got was also enough time for my friend Mary Eberstadt to sit down with him and ask him every question she ever wanted to, for his final record.
At the CIC, he was a revered spiritual director, accompanying people in discerning God’s will for them. Her transcripts of their conversations will be published next month under the title “The Last Homily.” Parts of it read as if he’s directing us through this current moment in the Church. It’s a reminder that the Christian call is the same whatever the season — a call to truly live God’s will — and that our role in being the solution has everything to do with living well, as Father Arne did.
Eberstadt asked him about what he tells young people about charity. His answer wasn’t initially about putting money in a collection basket or giving to the man on the corner (though he gets to the man on your commute home soon thereafter). Instead he addressed “the most corrosive impediments to charity: anger, vindictiveness, suspicion.” “Understand that you are a tempting target for the devil.”
Given darkness in our midst, this grabbed my attention.
“Diabolo,” Father Arne said, “means literally ‘scatterer.’”
And that is how evil operates: by putting obstacles between individuals and true community. His first weapon is lust. The sexual appetite is all-powerful, because it engenders a powerful good: the propagation of humanity itself. When the sexual appetite is turned to selfish self-indulgence, it destroys not only individuals, but a whole culture. When lust doesn’t work for the devil, or even if it does, he goes after charity. Once more: suspicion, vindictiveness, anger, and other such feelings are inimical to charity, because they divide people from one another. In all cases, I encourage spiritual jujitsu. When you begin to feel any of these divisive emotions, be self-aware, and immediately say a prayer for whoever is the object of your anger or resentment. This sets your spiritual house in order, and keeps you closer to community, and less scattered.
He explained: “The first line of thought I’d advance about charity is the necessity of getting one’s spiritual, interior life framed correctly, the better to give the right sort of material help.”
About scandal in the Church, he said: “Any priest who says Mass every day, or the Liturgy of the Hours . . . isn’t fertile territory for the evil seeds that led to the scandals.”
Perhaps now more than ever, for priests and Catholics of all states in life, this is a moment to choose to not get caught up in confusion, which is legion at the moment in the Church and many other places. Adopt practices of virtue, stick with them, increase their role in your life. See them as the part of the solution, because they are.
Father Arne had such a serene yet commanding nature about him. And it would draw you not to him but to the God he served. When you think of priests, every time you hear a news mention of the Catholic Church these days, consider saying a prayer that they might have what he had: Christ — radiating Him to others by the way he prayed, smiled, talked, and lived. You’ll see Him by his love.
This column is based on one available through Andrews McMeel Universal’s Newspaper Enterprise Association.
Wonderful reply. God Bless you!
There are far more good priests than bad, but until the Church admits to and purges the homosexual cabal within its ranks... that ratio will decline.
RE: No, she is A mediator to Jesus
But Jesus IS God.
Any priest who refuses to speak out against the child molesters is not a good priest.
When is it ever a bad idea to ask someone to put in a good word for you to the Boss?
What the laity don’t grasp is the reason none speak out is that they are not protecting the church but the homosexual cabal now entrenched within it.
Any true investigation into sexual impropriety of any sort must be stopped to keep them from being exposed. If your children’s lives are ruined because of a member of their cabal abusing them so be it.
Those that speak out are driven out or to the boonies.. the cabal trade sex for promotions, resources etc etc. they have completely taken over many diocese.
Welcome to the mystery of one God in three Persons. Mary's particular charisma relates to Jesus rather than the Holy Spirit or the God the Father.
RE: Welcome to the mystery of one God in three Persons. Mary’s particular charisma relates to Jesus rather than the Holy Spirit or the God the Father.
Why do we need a mediator between us and the Son?
It's not an "either-or", it is an "and". We can either go via. Mary or we can go direct, or both. And we can also throw the saints into the mix. Even you can be a mediator (and are, when you pray for someone else).
RE: We can either go via. Mary or we can go direct, or both. And we can also throw the saints into the mix. Even you can be a mediator (and are, when you pray for someone else).
So, you’re saying going via Mary or the Saints is not necessary then... just an option, Since the word of God does not mention going through another channel, we might as well go directly to God Himself.
RE: you can be a mediator (and are, when you pray for someone else).
We may certainly pray for one another, but ultimately our salvation or damnation depends on our personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
I think praying to Jesus is enough and sufficient.
I said the first part of the sentence. Your addition is "putting words in my mouth" to support your Protestant prejudice.
"We may certainly pray for one another, but ultimately our salvation or damnation depends on our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I think praying to Jesus is enough and sufficient.
So why would you pray for someone else, since their praying to Jesus is enough and sufficient?
Mary is not a mediator, she is an intercessor.
RE: Mary is not a mediator, she is an intercessor.
Can you explain the difference?
Can you explain the difference?
According to Vines Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, a mediator is "one who mediates between two parties with a view to producing peace". It is in that sense that the Lord Jesus is the only mediator bwetween God and man (I Tim 2:5).
We have only one mediator but many intercessors. Mary and the saints are intercessors as are our fellow believers.
*8What’s called for here is humility, atonement, penance, and piety.**
And the good priests and bishops have these virtues and qualities.
She is a mediator with Jesus, whose prayers go through Jesus the mediator, to the father.
People in your congregation who pray for you occupy the same place: they're mediators with Jesus.
Why did Paul ask people to pray for him? Why do you ask people to pray for you?
Technically intercession is a form of mediation. A mediator is a go-between. An intercessor is a mediator whose specific function is to plead someone’s case before a higher authority.
Sometimes atheists ask Christians, "If God is omniscient, he knows what you need already. If He is benevolent, he will give it to you. Therefore, what good is it to pray for anything?"
I think the question "Why do we need a mediator between us and the Son" is just a special case of that question.
Is it strictly necessary -- in a formal, mathematical sense -- to pray?
No, the atheist is right, God knows what we need and gives it to us out his goodness.
Yet he commands us to pray, and commands us to pray for one another. Why?
I'm not sure I can give you a complete answer. Of course there's the obvious recourse to authority: God said it, I believe it, that settles it.
But that's not very satisfying and serves mainly to end discussion.
Part of it is that it perfects and changes the people doing the praying. It also perfects and changes the people who are being prayed for.
Part of it is that Jesus has organized things so that he saves a flock, not individuals. He didn't say, "Wherever any one of you are gathered ..." but "Wherever *two or three* of you are gathered ...". Apparently there's something to this "community" stuff.
There's also something to this "eternal life" stuff, which is why Catholics invoke our spiritual forefathers and foremothers, the saints in heaven. The Church is a community, founded by one who defeated death, which -- because Jesus defeated death -- remains a community even though some of her members have "fallen asleep in the Lord".
5. Mary is the supreme masterpiece of Almighty God and he has reserved the knowledge and possession of her for himself. She is the glorious Mother of God the Son who chose to humble and conceal her during her lifetime in order to foster her humility. He called her "Woman" as if she were a stranger, although in his heart he esteemed and loved her above all men and angels. Mary is the sealed fountain and the faithful spouse of the Holy Spirit where only he may enter. She is the sanctuary and resting-place of the Blessed Trinity where God dwells in greater and more divine splendour than anywhere else in the universe, not excluding his dwelling above the cherubim and seraphim. No creature, however pure, may enter there without being specially privileged.
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